A nationwide first land-based seaweed trial aiming to clean up Aotearoa’s waterways is about to get growing beside the Firth of Thames in the Hauraki Gulf.
Poutama client, AgriSea is working with the University of Waikato on a two-year sea lettuce (Ulva) growing trial at the Kopu Marine Precinct in the Coromandel.
Backed by the Ministry for Primary Industries’ Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures fund, seaweed will grow for 12 months in three tanks drawing water from the Waihou Estuary, with data collation and analysis the final year.
The seaweed can be turned into high-value products while the process of growing it has a multitude of benefits.
AgriSea Managing Director, Tane Bradley says “seaweed doesn’t have root systems and so grows by pulling nutrients from the water around it. In this case, as Ulva grows it pulls Nitrogen from the water and incorporates it into its tissue.”
Known as ‘bioremediation’, the project will use seaweed in an attempt to clean excess nutrients from the Waihou Estuary.
“The seaweed in tanks will act as a sponge and filter feed on excess minerals like Nitrogen, Phosphorous and other heavy metals – in short cleaning up the water, which is then returned to the sea, filtered and clean,” Tane says.
More information about this research can be read here.
